One Tree Hill- Taylor Scott

Chapter 10

***Unedited

Tonight the team has an away game against the Pickerington Pirates, or Pickerington "hicks" as we like to call them. Lucas and Haley are finally getting along again, and Lucas and Peyton seem to be becoming friends. Last night when I was over Peyton's house, she made him a mixtape. 

"Are you taking the bus to the game or riding with Brooke?" Jake asks me as we walk out of the school. The cheerleaders are supposed to take the bus to away games, but Brooke usually ends up just taking her car, and Peyton and I ride with her most of the time's that she does. 

"I'll probably ride with Brooke. I haven't really spent a lot of time with her and Peyton lately," I tell Jake. It's true, so much has been happening lately that my two best friends and I haven't really been hanging out. I've been spending a lot of time with Jake- our relationship is getting more serious. This is the longest I've ever dated a guy without having sex. Actually, this is the longest I've dated a guy without one of us cheating on the other. Peyton's had a lot going on lately, and Brooke has been trying to seduce Lucas. 

Speaking of, I see Lucas and tell Jake that I'll se him later tonight. "Hey, Luke!" I call out, and he nods at me as I walk up to him. "You ready for your first away game as a Raven?" 

"Only if we win. And if Nathan decides to stop being such a jackass-" he starts but I cut him off. 

"Lucas."

He sighs. The other day, Lucas and I talked for a while about everything that's been happening. I convinced him to forgive Haley, but he still hates Nathan. That's understandable, because Nathan still is being awful to Lucas, but we came to an agreement. Because I really want to get to know Lucas but Nathan hates him, we agreed to just not talk about Nathan. When I'm around Lucas, he won't discuss his hatred for my twin, and I won't mention him either. It works for the both of us. "Sorry, I know," Lucas apologizes, putting his hands up in surrender. "How's it going with Jagielski."

I smile at the thought. Jake and I have been dating for almost a month now, but I still get butterflies whenever someone mention him. It's really weird for me because I've never gotten butterflies before. Everything about my relationship with Jake is all new to me. "Great. It's going great. Although the other night he-who-must-not-be-named gave Jake the brotherly talk about how he'll murder Jake if he ever hurts me," I explain to Lucas, referring to Nathan, although we agreed not to speak of him. 

"Eh, I'll mess him up too if he does anything," Lucas laughs and I get a weird feeling. Lucas and I have been getting closer, but we still don't really have a brother-sister relationship. But Lucas just said that he'd also do the whole overprotective brother thing if Jake hurts me. The feeling that I get isn't bad, it's... happy. I've wanted for so long to get to know my other brother, and now I finally am. 

Nathan has noticed that Lucas and I have been getting closer though, and last night he confronted me about it. Lucas happened to come up in a conversation, which is what started the argument. "Why have you been spending so much time with him anyway?" Nathan had asked a little angrily.

I told him that I had a right to want to know my other brother, and Nathan got mad at me referring to Lucas as my brother. Now, Nathan and I make eye contact across the parking lot, and he shakes his head me and walks in the other direction. I roll my eyes, not that he can tell. I swear, him and I get into a fight every other week. My family is so dysfunctional. Whatever, I'm not going to worry about it. I'm just going to head to Peyton's. Her, Brooke, and I are all meeting there and then we're going to drive to the game. 

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The Pickerington gym is filled with a surprisingly large number of Tree Hill students for an away game. Almost everyone goes to all of the home games since basketball is such a large part of our town, but not this many usually go to away games. Of course, there's still a few more Pickerington fans than Raven fans.